Drewan Baird. Oudtshoorn. 11 June 2013. 10h50. The ENS forensic report found that the Executive Mayor of Eden, and DA Caucus Chair in Oudtshoorn, committed fraud, falsification, and uttering.

So serious is this matter that the Eden audit committee was told by its Chair that no cost should be too high to get to the bottom of this outrage. Said Chairman Stoffels: It’s not as if the tea lady was caught helping herself to some sugar; it’s the Executive Mayor that has been exposed by a leading forensics firm of professional investigators.

Eventually a hearing date was set: Monday, 17 June.

But the charge sheet is a scandalous manifestation of presdidigious political pandering.

It is a water downed excuse for the grave charges expected to have been drafted in the light of the ENS findings.

It is a transparent attempt to save the DA from the political fall-out of having to fire a brown mayor.

There are ten charges.

The charges relate to accommodation during last year’s sevens rugby tournament; a trip to Johannesburg; accommodation arranged without approval; attending a DA meeting in Cape Town at municipal expense; and various sustenance and travel claims.

All ten charges are in terms of the Structures Act; the MFMA; and the Eden S&T policy.

Only one charge relates to fraud.

Read the Eden ENS Report and decide for yourself whether this charge sheet is laudable or laughable.

The DA can not afford to be seen to act against a brown or a black mayor. This is the sole reason why Van der Westhuizen and Memory Booysen (Bitou) are still in office.

Van der Westhuizen is an embarrassment. Period.

That the DA can stoop to criticising other political parties for so-called cover-ups, is a sick joke.

The charges against Van der Westhuizen are grave – the ENS Report; the Netstar reports; the evidence of his raucous June 4 behaviour in the George municipal buildings.

If either one of Van der Westhuizen and the DA has a velleity of respectability or public conscience Van der Westhuizen would be stepping aside until the legion of fact and innuendo had been cleared.

Alas!

In the DA ranks in Oudtshoorn at this time are Wessie van der Westhuizen; Raymond Wildschut; John Maxim; Pieter Luiters; Hendrik Botha’ Hendrik Ruiters; Jeremy Goliath; and Jurie Harmse.